


Scientist|Hacker

by hostilewitness



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Porn With Plot, Unresolved Emotional Tension, mention of Siebren/Harold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:40:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23540011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hostilewitness/pseuds/hostilewitness
Summary: The story of a scientist meeting a strange hacker. Of friends becoming something more and something confusing, of two people who just enjoy each other's company.
Relationships: Sigma | Siebren de Kuiper/Sombra | Olivia Colomar
Comments: 16
Kudos: 88





	Scientist|Hacker

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically a love letter to the GravityHacker queen herself, Proxy! <3

A scientist, and a hacker. It almost seems like the start of a lame joke that would open a conference for technology-savvy individuals. If Sigma sat and thought long enough he could probably come up with a semi-decent punch line, but he was never that great at making others laugh. He could get a chuckle out of Moira every now and then, or catch Reaper cackling at morbid things, but even his lamest jokes would get giggles from a particular hacker he became accidentally fond of. 

It wasn't easy for him to find someone he could open up to, Talon never made anything easy. Most help came at a cost, any good deed could be deemed punishable, there were strings attached to everything and it was the people leading at the inner council that pulled them all- It took years for Dr. Siebren de Kuiper to accept this. He lost a good chunk of time being trapped in his own mind, whispers from the stars and knowledge he would never be able to properly vocalize left him stuck in his body as the world moved on without him. For far too long he was treated like a bomb ready to go off at any moment, rotating nurses and doctors would talk to him gently but never answer his questions, never tell him why he felt so out of control all the time, never even calling him by his real name.

They called him Sigma, they sewed the symbol to his clothes and brought him back into a reality he wasn't prepared for. They did this, they did that, if he was honest with himself, he wasn't even sure who or what organization first imprisoned him, but details like that didn't matter when his life was such a blur after the accident. Really, all he knew for certain was at some point those white lab coats somehow became scientists and nurses hiding their faces behind red metal masks and Talon symbols etched into armor. 

Everyone was so careful with him, so cold. Talon was not a friendly place, not a place for jokes or games, which must have been why he found himself so flustered the first time he met _her_.

Sigma was outside of his usual wing of Talon's medical building, during a training exercise where he'd been learning to control his new ability to twist gravity at his own will, he had a lapse in judgment and let his mind slip a little too far. Reality slipped away into hazy black space and floating stars. When he came to he was surrounded by destruction and cracks in his armor that were cutting deep into his sides. Helpful but silent agents dragged him out of his lab and far into the medical building as he was half-awake and gripping at the broken armor.

Laying in the recovery room, which was more of a triage hall with beds lining the halls, he was floating in and out of consciousness after being stitched up. When the curtain at his side swung open, he opened his heavy eyes in confusion to find a woman in the next bed over staring at him intently. She had dark eyes with blown-out pupils and lips lifted in a half smile, but she'd clearly been through some kind of procedure herself with her head newly shaved and some kind of cybernetic attachments curling over her skull where skin had swelled beneath.

Something about that way she looked at him had him squirming in the recovery bed. They were both unmasked, the bandaging at his sides meant he was there shirtless as her eyes looked over his shoulders, he felt completely vulnerable beneath the stranger's gaze. 

"Hallo." He nodded toward her after a long few moments of her simply staring. He shook his head at the brief lapse of judgment greeting her in Dutch, but he was sure she'd understand such a simple word.

"So, what're you in for?" 

"W-what?" He questioned, wondering if she was coherent enough to actually be trying to strike up a conversation with him. 

"I just got some of my equipment upgraded." She smiled and pointed lazily at the cybernetic lines across her head. "Boring stuff, you know? Not like you, looks like something messed you up pretty bad, huh?"

"Oh, well-" He looked down at his chest, bandaged where his armor broke and he touched one of his wounds gently. "I'm not entirely sure, it can be hard for me to keep track of things sometimes." 

"Field mission?" She questioned as she leaned against the bed railing. "Or do you normally go around hurting yourself and not remembering how?" 

"I am a _scientist_ , not a field agent..." He scoffed before staring down at his palms.

She said something, some kind of snide remark from the tone of her voice but he was feeling that strange sensation again. His skin would buzz with the weight of gravity pulling in all different directions, that slow creeping in his chest was welling with an overwhelming fear of what he was becoming, of vast unknowns. Scientists didn't usually need to be strapped into armor in order to perform experiments, scientists wrote down their observations and questioned new hypotheses they didn't cover walls in nonsense equations or spend eight hours carefully tuning a radio trying to find just the right song to listen while working only for it to burst apart beneath their hands.

As he looked down at his palms he was questioning what kind of power he really held, unsure if his fate belonged to numbers and statistics or if he was meant for something far more sinister. He knew well enough that his safety within Talon was conditional. Conditional to staying compliant, to keeping his mouth shut, to being thankful for what Talon gave him and that they helped him at all, but he could never quite connect just what it was they wanted from him. He guessed he should be thankful for a moment of human interaction with a woman who looked just about as out of it as he did. 

"Hey?" The woman reached over to wave her hand at the edge of his vision, Sigma snapped his eyes up confused and she looked absolutely annoyed. "Hey- Are you even listening to me?" 

"Sorry. I'm so sorry, what were talking about?" He could feel his cheeks flush with heat, it was embarrassing enough that he'd lost track of her one-sided conversation, but he caught himself staring at her lips. She was a beautiful woman, even just out of surgery there was a particular air to her, but he didn't intend to gawk. 

"Man, you're really not in a good shape, are you?" She lifted her lips in a mischievous smile. "Don't worry, come find me later and I can show you all the ways to get around Talon's stupid rules." 

_"Sombra."_ A masked nurse warned as they appeared at the edge of the curtain. Sigma's shoulders stiffened, eyes darted away knowing they shouldn't have been talking in the first place. He hated that the nurses wore metal masks and carried weapons on their backs. That particular one was also holding up a vial and shaking it above his new talkative friend, he recognized that threat to knock her out if she didn't listen. "You are supposed to be recovering. You are not here to make friends. Lay down and rest or I'll let the upper council know you're ready to head back out in the field as you are."

That seemed to be enough to quiet her as the annoyed nurse roughly pulled the curtain closed between them. Sigmawondered what it was that kept her there, but only briefly. Sitting in that bed he stared down at his palms and pictured energy passing between them, ideas of how to capture the gravitational pull he felt while in a vacuum of space bounced around his head coming up with formula after formula for tools which could harness it. 

Once again the world moved on regardless of where his mind was at. 

It must have been a handful of months after their initial meeting in the recovery room of the hospital wing that he saw Sombra again. 

She appeared on the other side of observation glass as he was testing different variations of his new plans for hyperspheres. Talon agents had armored him up in uniforms that looked much like their own, but with far a more heavy-duty metal and his mask was augmented to calculate for velocities making it far easier for him to control the new orbs. He was almost ready to throw one when he caught her through the window, she stopped to look in as she stood next to a tall man dressed in simple armor withhis chest out and red paint covered his face. His eyes fixated on her.

She looked different, dressed in her own armored uniform instead of the hospital gown. Dramatic makeup including purple lipstick that made him stare unintentionally, but what stuck out the most to him was her hair had grown out and flopped on top of her head falling over her eyes as she moved, she kept having to brush it out of the way when her head tilted from side to side. 

He stopped and waved, thinking it was strange but nice to finally see the same face twice, but that only resulted in strange expressions. He couldn't hear the man on the other side of the glass, but Sigma could see words forming on the man's lips.

 _"Do you know this man?"_ He asked and looked down at Sombra, almost as if he was accusing her of something.

 _"No?"_ She curled her lip and shot Sigma a mean look that sank his heart to the ground. _"Why would I?"_

The man grumbled something in response before he roughly turned and said something over his shoulder to her. She lingered in the window, staring at Sigma as he stood there confused why she would have denied ever meeting him. The longer she looked the more her brows furrowed, she lifted her hands into the air and threw them as if she was giving up on who she could have been staring at. 

It dawned on him that his face was hidden behind the red mask of his armor. He motioned for her to wait just a moment as he shook his hands in the air and pointed at his mask. Judgemental eyes looked him over as he then moved to pull away the mask. He knew his cheeks would be flushed and his hair would be a matted mess as he lifted it away, but all he wanted was some sort of validation that he wasn't as alone as he felt within Talon. 

With his face exposed, he stared back at her, his eyes hopeful and waiting. 

_"Oooh!"_ She smiled on the other side of the glass. She pointed at him and laughed to herself. _"The scientist!"_

He breathed out a relieved sigh, it felt so odd wanting to be seen after trying so hard to mind himself around everyone else. He wanted to talk to her through the glass, to ask where she went during the day, how could he possibly find her again, but the man she was with her must have called for her. Sombra's head turned to look down the hall and she ran off with a small wave, disappearing once more off into the unknowns of Talon. 

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily- considering how his productivity dropped- she found him.

She would pop up without warning, appearing in his lab to bother him with nonsensical questions once or twice a month, following him down the halls with playful distractions if she caught him by chance, she was like some kind of gnat that always buzzed away in the corner of his vision never quite there but never quite gone either, always scheming he felt. Even so, he was thankful for her fleeting presence as strange as she was. 

"Are you having a fine day, Sombra?" He would ask trying to open conversation if he found her using his lab to work on her own equipment. He'd never get a straight answer from her, but he was beginning to learn how to read her tone even though she guarded herself well. 

"Did you know Bishop from the weapons team was selling some of his new plans to arms makers in Europe?" Ignoring his question was something of a typical reply for her. "Doomfist is so pissed."

Ah, that meant she was in a bad mood, even though she was trying to laugh it off as if Doomfist being mad was all some kind of big joke. It took quite some time for him to pick up on her way of communicating, it was frustrating at times and felt like a guessing game more often than not, but that day he knew he'd cracked it enough to recognize exactly what she was saying. 

"You know you can simply tell me you're having a bad day?" He offered as he set down his latest work. "It's alright. Hideout here as long as you need, I don't mind the company." 

She paused, her eyes looking to a spot on the floor as if she was wondering how he could know. She must have come to a decision that she wasn't ready for that proverbial hand he reached out, chewing at the corner of her lip she hopped up from her seat and said she had somewhere else to be. 

Even so, after that her visits became just a little longer every time and slowly the walls that were between them were slowly being chipped away. 

He always had a sneaking suspicion following her presence in his life, she must have had something to do with the loosening of the rules that bound him. Within a year he went from sleeping in a room no better than a prison cell to having full access to higher floors of the sciences building and moving into apartments meant for specialty agents. To him, it felt as if one day he was rubbing at bruised wrists sore from bindings and the next time he opened his eyes he was high within ranks that he never asked to be in. Sigma was a thoughtful man, however. He knew better than to question the good fortune of being placed in positions of power, although he had his thoughts on the morality of the organization, he was fully aware his options were limited and being at the top of the chain in Talon was far better than living in fear at the bottom. 

Only after he'd been working with the higher ranks did he realize he'd been assigned to the same building as Sombra. Whether it was on purpose or simply a coincidence didn't matter, as she sought him out all the same. Much to his dismay, she seemed to grow bolder and bolder with each of their interactions.

"Sigma!" She yelled out once as he was in his lab hunched over a mess of papers searching for a formula he was sure he'd written down. He didn't even turn to greet her, he needed to focus and offered nothing more than an acknowledging grunt with a hand waved in the air. "Pfft, look at you, always working so hard. Give it a rest today!" 

He could hear the pitter-patter of her feet quickly coming at him, but nothing could have prepared him for her to jump onto his back and cling to him like some sort of deranged monkey. She chuckled as her body shook and struggled to cling to his massive form, her heels dug into his ribs and her arms wrapped at his neck practically choking him before he snapped out of his focus and instinctively grabbed at her legs trying to stop her from dropping and hurting herself. 

"Is this normally how you greet people?!" He barked out, rather than angry his voice lifted in surprise as he felt his cheeks flush with heat and his heart fluttered inside his chest. 

"Ah, well... I tried it on Reaper once and he wasn't a good sport about it." She muttered and adjusted herself against his back. 

It wasn't the right time for him to realize he'd gone so long without another person's touch. Perhaps that even made him _more_ acutely aware, but as she was pressed against him he fixated on the feeling of her chest moving when she breathed and the heat between her legs that made his forehead bead with sweat. 

"Would you carry me to the commons? I don't feel like walking." Her breath was against the back of his neck.

"Sombra you are a grown woman, you do not need anyone to give you piggyback rides anywhere." He tried to scold her but he could hear the tone in his voice that wavered. "If you'd like, I will accompany there, but you _must_ walk on your own feet." 

"You're no fun." She tsked before pushing away from him.

One leg dropped at his side, she was careful as she slowly lowered one foot than the other until she was off him and standing on her own. 

Sigma brought a hand to his face, hiding blush rising at his cheeks. Lost in his thoughts busy trying to pretend as if he wasn't attracted to her and thinking about how she had to actually climb him to get on his back, he only realized she swiped away a holopen of his after she'd chuckled beneath her breath and waved it in at the side of his face. It was just another one of her games, she must have known what she was doing and how flustered she would make him. He turned quickly to grab it and missed her, catching only a glimpse of her smirk and mischievous expression before she translocated.

"If you want this back you have to find me!" 

It seemed to Sigma like he was the unfair target of her particularly flirtatious shenanigans. The more flustered he became the more it encouraged her, he would tell anyone who asked that he hated it but she could see the way he'd hold his breath and hide his blush anytime she messed with him. Regardless of the way she would make a fool of him, he was seeking her honest friendship, someone who he could speak to without fear of the reigns of Talon coming down on him, and he could see in Sombra's eyes she was looking for just the same. It took work to get her to break down her walls, he knew it would even from the beginning. If there was anything he knew right from the start, it was that she was deeply untrusting of every person she met and he was sure he was no exception.

Quietly proving he was worthy of her trust came in the form of time. Time spent working together both in labs and in missions. Funnily enough, he actually enjoyed going on missions when she was on the team. They worked well together, in a way that she would anticipate his attacks as he made them and their goals were usually met without a hitch rather than the usual clunky mess it was with other agents. They would talk and talk sometimes about nothing, sometimes sharing even the smallest pieces of their lives. 

"What kind of candies do you like?" Sombra asked him one day when she called him out of the blue. Sigma paused knowing she was out in the field and was supposed to be dark on her communicator. 

"Caramels?" He questioned.

Her response was a sound of glee and a kissing noise into the receiver before it disconnected. For days he was left wondering how that could have been so important that she would break Talon's rigid rules in order to ask him. 

It wasn't until she returned and appeared at his door in the middle of the night that he understood. She'd been on a mission near his hometown, not only had she brought him back caramels but she specifically had gone to a candy shop in the city center he used to visit as a child that had his favorite candies. He never expected her to remember a boring story about something he had as a kid, let alone go through the effort of tracking the place down, but he could have fallen to his knees and sobbed when she dropped them in his palms with this big bright smile beaming up at him.

They shared cookies and caramels on the quiet of his apartment balcony the night she came back from that mission. She talked on and on about how much of a grump Reaper was, and Sigma just stood there, smiling to himself, confused by his own feelings but happy to share that moment with her, happy to open his apartment to her for the first time because it felt like a real step in the direction of having a genuine connection with her. 

He wanted to kiss her that night. He almost did, and he could feel it in bones that she wanted him to. She had crumbs at the corner of her mouth, he tried to tell her to wipe them away but she kept missing them and he took matters into his own hands. He didn't mean to, but his shaking fingers brushed against her lips and they both paused. He could have sworn she lifted onto her toes but at the moment he was overwhelmed and doubted himself, his mind blanked and he blurted out the only thing he could think of.

"We could use some tea!" 

She had this gobsmacked look on her face when he turned quickly to head into his little kitchen. They didn't look at each other as he began to boil water and rummage through his cupboards looking for a tea that could ease the strange feeling between them. She stood at his sliding glass door overlooking his balcony, her silhouette was dark against the glow of a full moon with arms crossed over her chest and weight leaned on one hip. As he moved to stand at her side to offer a cup, he found her staring up at the sky with her eyes tracing the remains of the colony imprinted on the moon. She was distracting herself even while she ran her thumb over her lower lip. 

"It's strange to think you were up there." She sucked at her teeth and hesitantly accepted the drink. "Do you ever miss it?" 

"It was cold." Sigma scoffed before he lifted his own eyes to the glow of the night sky, the cup was so warm in his palms. "The moon is an ugly gray and the food we had to eat was so incredibly bland." 

He paused as a slow feeling of guilt caught in his chest. It wasn't all bad, but it was easier to push aside the pain and pretend like he was more bothered by the aesthetics of the moon rather than the haunting memory of never having the chance to goodbye to lost love. 

"You look sad whenever you look at it." Sombra spoke quietly. He turned to stare down at her and she had this expression he'd never caught across her face before. Concern for him, softness in her eyes beneath worried furrowed brows. 

"Up there is where my experiments resulted in a catastrophic failure, where my real troubles began. Of course I am not happy to think of the things that ruined my life and my sanity." 

"There's something else." She insisted and brought a free hand to touch his arm. Her touch made his heart jump. "I've seen how you look at the agents here, I know what contempt looks like on you. If you don't want to talk about it that's fine. I just-" Her eyes dropped to where she was gripping at the fabric of his shirt and she pulled away quickly. "Maybe you don't want to share it with me, and that's okay. I know we poke fun at each other sometimes, but you can talk to me." 

He didn't know how to handle the feelings that mixed around in him, he'd never known before exactly where they stood or what was too much to share. That moment he felt as if he could see her clearly, someone just as lonely as he was with nowhere else to go and no one else to seek comfort in. He'd never spoken to anyone about some aspects of his time at the moon colony, much of it he kept guarded and locked away as memories that were far too painful to visit. By the look on her face, she must have memories like that too, things she wanted to share but never quite knew how to bring up. Standing there at the window, it seemed to his time for finally putting words to those memories.

"There was... someone who was very dear to me, up there. Someone I loved very much." He began carefully, hesitant to speak about least he began choking up. "Harold." 

"Oh. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to pry-" Sombra turned her back to the window, cutting herself off to drink from the tea he'd made her. 

"It's alright, Sombra." He sighed with a small smile. "Really, I don't mind." 

"What was he like?" She asked hesitantly. It didn't seem to be her usual mischievous prying, she wasn't asking so she could use it against him, she was asking because she actually wanted to know. 

"Kind. He was very patient, especially so with me. His sense of humor was a little strange, but I think that may have been because he spent all day with genetically modified animals." Sigma smiled with a small laugh as he stared up to the far distant base. "But he was very strict about his work, very focused, even more so than I ever was. No, he would not have put up with your shenanigans. I think you two would have never gotten along. Although, he would have liked the way you stand up for yourself." 

"You talk about him in past tense. If you don't mind me asking, was he there? During your accident?" 

"No, no he was in a different section far from my base." It felt almost therapeutic to talk about Harold, to remember how close he was to Sigma's heart. "Although, it wasn't long after that when-"

Sigma paused, a lump in his throat that caused him to take a long breath. He blew at the steam from his drink and rubbed his fingers gently against the porcelain of the cup. It was hard for him to say what exactly happened, Harold's gruesome end was the of much of his pain and contempt for Overwatch. Sombra reached out once again and squeezed his arm, her face patient and eyes soft. Without even a word she was telling him it was okay to share either at little or as much as he needed.

"When I was imprisoned I didn't even know he was dead. I would look up to the moon through barred windows and I would wonder if he knew where I was, I was so worried about how he was doing and when I would see him again. I had to read about his death in an article online, years after it happened. It appeared Overwatch tried to keep it quiet but after the explosion at their base it seems all of their secrets got out." 

"That's awful." She remarked as she moved to wrap her fingers at his cup. 

He was surprised with their hands resting together, but she slipped between thier fingers and took his drink from him. In one swift motion, she set their drinks off to the side and grabbed him by the front of the shirt, pulling to bring his body against hers. Before he could even process what she was doing, her arms were circled around his waist and she was hugging him tightly to her. He paused with his arms high in the air unsure if her sudden hug was something she meant to, or if he'd stumbled into it accidentally.

She squeezed him, even with her strength it was barely anything compared to his mass of muscles. She wasn't going to let go until he returned the embrace, she refused to lift her head to look at him, instead she buried her face against his front and waited until he hesitantly brought his arms down to hold her. Their hug lasted far longer than he anticipated, they said nothing, they simply enjoyed the quiet of a hold that was so rarely afforded to Talon agents. 

He had not even the faintest idea of how to feel about Sombra.

For months he could be found hunched over in his lab with his forehead to the table replaying that night over and over again just to remind himself of how embarrassing it was that Sombra made him as nervous as she did. He needed a push, some kind of sign that he wasn't misreading the way she would lean on his shoulder if they sat together at a workbench or the way she would make silly joking innuendoes about them already being an old bickering married couple. He wouldn't allow himself to be fooled into thinking there was more to them than what he saw at the surface level.

* * *

He wasn't even sure how long it had been with Talon, but Sigma could feel the world changing around him.

He was in his lab one winter, zoning out from his work not particularly focused on anything other than tinkering with of his orbs. He finally was comfortable where he was, higher ranking afforded him the luxury of no longer being forced to wear a uniform day in and day out. That day he sat low in a chair with his sweater sleeves pushed to his elbows, not thinking much of anything at all when he heard Sombra's quiet shuffling through his open doors. 

He stood, and his mouth fell open when he turned to look at her. 

"I see you've changed your hair."

Oops, his fingers squeezed around the metal orb he'd been playing with, grabbing it just a little too hard fracturing it in seconds. In an attempt to hide it, he brought the orb behind his back.

Not only had she dyed some of her hair purple, but it now all fell to one side exposing a shaved half with the ends glowing in a soft white almost synthetic way, and her cybernetics were purple instead of red. He chewed at the corner of his lip and played with the broken orb behind his back wondering if she'd always had gauged ears, or if he'd never looked long enough to notice them. 

"Yeah...?" She brought her fingers to the ends of her hair, mindlessly twisting it between fingertips. She looked disappointed, perhaps not the right reaction she was looking for.

"It looks nice!" He corrected as he nervously lifted his lips to a smile, worried she must have assumed he didn't like it. He felt ridiculous for even thinking she would seek him out just to find out what he thought- she was a gorgeous woman regardless of her haircut and surely he would be the last person she would ever be seeking validation in. "Really, Sombra. I like the purple."

"You do?" There she went again, with that look in her eyes that said she was up to something. "Well if you like so much, I still have some leftover dye if you're interested." 

"Is that so?" He'd learned to quip back with her, over all their little moments he'd picked up on how he could match her humor. "I don't see why you're smiling like that, do you think I wouldn't?" 

"Oh- um-" She immediately appeared taken back that he didn't show the slightest hint of sarcasm. "You- you wouldn't actually dye your hair. You're too serious all the time, too worried about how everyone here looks at you." 

"No?" He lifted his brows, he'd even convinced himself he was half serious. Making sure she couldn't see the orb he'd broken in his palm, he set it behind him on a table and motioned to the door. "Well, come on then. Let me prove it to you." 

"You're messing with me."

"I'm not, I assure you." 

"You won't."

"I will." His heart was racing, but he couldn't let her know.

"Okay." She shook her head in disbelief. 

"Okay!" He responded with another encouraging motion towards the door. 

That was how he found himself in her room, somewhere he'd wondered about and never once thought he'd see inside.

She led him past her tiny sitting area, for one woman she had more blankets than any single person would need all thrown over the others in a pile at one end of her couch, they walked through her room into a bathroom that still smelled of hair products. Sure as day, her purple dye was sitting just next to her sink along with a wide array of other tools and brushes that made his mind spin just thinking how long it must have taken her to put all that effort into changing her hair. 

She stared up at him with squinting eyes, glaring at his grayed hair for a long while before she began to unzip her top. 

"Aw, there's no need to blush like that Sigma, I'm taking this off so I don't get dye on it, not so you can sneak a peek." She flicked his arm with her long nails and he caught a glimpse in the mirror of just how red in the face he'd turned so quickly. "You should get that sweater off too, unless you don't mind a bit of purple." 

"Right." He sucked in a breath and paused to consider where his line was when it came to one upping her.

He didn't _want_ to dye his hair, let alone purple of all colors, but he liked this game they played, he liked the push and pull and seeing her reaction by breaking her expectations. Purple hair. He could already hear the lecture Reaper would lay into him. How far would she really go, he wondered. He shook his head as he pulled away not only his sweater but his shirt beneath as well. 

"You're too tall for this." She clicked her tongue and gathered her own hair into a low bun out of her face. Sigma stared down, struck by her. Beneath the new purple jacket she had on a top that stopped just above her belly button and leggings that hugged at her hips, he couldn't remember a time he'd ever seen that much of her skin. Suddenly he was feeling all too self-conscious, it wasn't normal to simply disrobe in the way they were, in reality, they barely knew each other. "You're going to have to sit on the floor." 

"If you insist." He chewed at the inside of his cheek and balled the sweater in his hands trying to dry sweating palms. 

When he knelt to the ground it hit him just how much larger than her he was. He always knew that, of course, he'd always been the tallest and biggest person in any room, but he'd never fully considered it until he was eye level with her waist and he realized just how much of her body he would be able to hold with even one hand.

"You look nervous, chickening out already? " She asked as she began to shake a bottle of very vivid purple. 

"Of course not." He shook his head as he closed his eyes and held his breath. She snapped on a pair of gloves and leaned over him with eyes looking over every inch at the top of his head. "You seem hesitant, are _you_ chickening out?"

"I-" She stepped closer, moving with her foot between his knees, her body so close he could see her stomach jump as he breathed out. Her hands hovered over him, taking far too long. He knew she wouldn't go through with it, she was a trouble maker, but she would never do something that would cross a boundary like changing his hair on a dare. "Actually... you know what? I just don't think purple is your color." 

"You don't?" He looked up with a satisfied smile. Finally, he'd flustered her. After all the times he'd tried to match her he finally saw pink rising to her cheeks. It made him chuckle as he stared up at her doing everything in her power to avoid his eyes. "Well, Sombra, color me disappointed." 

"Whatever, you wouldn't have gone through with it anyway." She moved against him, either purposefully or not, her hip bumped against his shoulder and he instinctually jerked his hand up thinking she was losing her balance. "Hey-!" She yelled out thinking he must have just been trying to feel her up before they locked eyes. 

He hadn't even realized it, he was holding her by the back of her thigh, his fingers resting high enough that he knew he should have pulled away but he froze and his chest welled with all sorts of excuses and it was like all at once he forgot how to speak. It had been so long since he felt what he did as he sat beneath her, not just stirring at his core but the fluttering at his heart confused by what exactly he meant to her. 

"Sombra, I-" 

She let out a disbelieving laugh and squirted a glob of purple dye to her gloved fingers in retaliation. He dropped his hand away from her right as she pushed cold dye through the top of his hair. He gasped, his lips fell open thinking there was no way she would have actually followed through with it. Shocked herself, she paused looking just as wide-eyed. He could see the look of immediate regret before she sucked in a breath and stepped back, allowing him to stand and examine the streak of purple that then ran from the front of his hair and curled to the back of his skull. 

"Sombra." He stood tall and stared at himself in the mirror with a scary calm. 

"Listen you can wash it out right now and it won't stain-" She set the dye down as if it was one of his orbs ready to bounce away at the slightest gravitational flux. She was beyond flustered, she was embarrassed and looking for a way out. He was positive if she had her translocator on her she'd disappear, but instead, she ripped off her glove and chewed at the end of a nail. Nervous on Sombra was something new him. "Or... it'll just be maybe a slight tint. Oh! We could just shave it all! Um, for what's it's worth I think you look good with the purple! Very punk rock, very edgy dad going through a crisis kind of look-" 

"I won't be able to wash it out if you continue to spout off the way you are." He spoke with his lips lifted in a smile.

They needed a moment apart to breathe, to gather thoughts. She clamped her lips together and nodded, her eyes darting to the small living room just on the other side of the door, but she didn't move.

Was he getting the wrong impression about what was happening between them? He furrowed his brow and pressed his hand to his stomach, his thumb mindlessly running through his graying body hair.

"Unless you wish to stay in here... while I...?" 

"Nope." She squeaked out. She was staring at him, not at his hair, she was watching the way his chest fell with shallow breaths, the way his muscles flexed as he moved his arms. It was a squeeze to get by him, even both turned facing each other their bodies brushed together as she tried to move past him. She grabbed the door and swung it closed, pausing just before it would have slammed to suck in her cheeks and look to the massive purple spot in his hair. "Be sure to use the shampoo in the yellow bottle, not the black one." 

As he turned on her shower and undressed, he tried to think of a way he would categorize their relationship with each other. He couldn't properly call them friends, he would think if they were it would be clear to them both. They weren't romantic, nor could he see someone such as her falling for him. He needed somewhere to fit what they were, some sort of label or way he could tell people _'Oh, that's Sombra, she's my part time nemesis but we don't mind each other's company'_.

The water may have been too warm, he stood beneath it so long trying to think of way to describe Sombra that he almost forgot what he was doing there in the first place. 

"Oh, my." He looked to a shelf of all types of bottles and ran his hand over his face. He scoffed each bottle until it hit him that he'd forgotten what she warned him. "Black... or yellow?" He mumbled to himself. 

It seemed in the moment as if he made the right choice, pigment definitely washed from his hair and stained his fingers as he scrubbed at it. After a shower that went on for far too long, he dried himself not bothering to wipe at the fogged up mirror and dressed back into his clothes before emerging from her bathroom. Sigma found Sombra with a locator in one hand, screwdriver in the other, sat on her couch in front of a muted tv and her wide eyed expression said everything about his choice in shampoo.

"How bad is it?" He asked as he ran a hand through his damp hair. 

"Uhm..." She didn't want to tell him, instead she shook her head and waved her hand making one of the most transparent faces he'd ever seen. "No one will even notice." 

"For some reason, I'm finding it difficult to believe you." He deadpanned. He turned to head straight back into her bathroom, but she shot up from her seat on the couch and hurried to stop him.

"Wait!" She called out and held the device she was working on out towards him. "Since you're already here, you might as well help me with this. I need a second set of hands to get it open." 

"You want to work on that right now? While I look like this?" He asked motioning up to his head.

He didn't want to just be imagining it, he didn't want to think she was simply using him but it almost seemed like she was coming up with an excuse to make him stay. 

"It'll just take a minute." She breathed out. 

He was too easily swayed by how she looked at him. At his agreeance, she shoved blankets on her couch to the floor to make room for him and they sat facing each other on the cushions trying to pry open the locator. It felt like a toy in his hands, small devices like that always did because of how big his hands were and his nerves were not helping the situation. He fumbled more than he usually would, especially so when their fingers brushed together. Whenever they would touch accidentally his eyes would turn to the screen playing a movie and he smiled at it as she tried to twist a screwdriver hard into a broken piece of the locator. 

"What are you so happy about? I made you look ridiculous." She questioned as if he was planning something.

"This movie-" He motioned his head toward it. It was a dreadfully boring drama that got terrible reviews, but that was right up his alley. "I never got the chance to watch it, although I wanted to. It came out just after I was sent into space to perform my tests." 

"Do you want me to restart it so you can see the whole thing?" She asked as she pulled away, her voice cautiously questioning what his intentions were. 

"No, that's alright. I've bothered you enough this evening, I'm sure I can just watch it in my own room-" 

"I don't mind." She blurted out. "Unless, you probably have somewhere else to be-"

"You gave me purple hair, I have nowhere else to be." He laughed out. 

Whatever was happening between them, it seemed neither of them wanted to fully acknowledge it. For over two hours they sat on opposite ends of a couch, as far as possible from each other, only talking in small bursts about awkward scenes. Sigma played with his lavender colored hair, Sombra kept her knees curled close to her chest, and in the end it was simply two strangers watching something together, yet Sigma had no grasp on anything that happened during the movie because he was so focused on every little move or every little noise she made. 

* * *

It took weeks for Sigma's hair to grow out again after shaving it to avoid the questions about colored hair.

Sombra used his new baldness as ammo for something else to tease him with, and her usual shenanigans quickly picked up their pace. Knowing he was no longer just going to stand by and be flustered by her, she would think of all kinds of different ways to get reactions out of him. One of the more embarrassing moments he had was when she thoughtlessly slid into his lap to rub her hands on either side of his head, it was meant to be playful but he could feel something stirring in him that he would have rather not dealt with and he stood far too quickly forcing him off his legs and dropping her to the floor. 

She laughed because she knew exactly what it did to him and no amount of scolding could hide the pink across his cheeks. 

When his hair finally grew back long enough to his usual trimmed length, Sombra had been ramping up and up in her teasing until he knew something had to change. Something was about to break, he could feel it, he was feeling particularly antsy after being cooped up in Talon HQ for weeks, the unsure rumbling beneath his chest which bubbled at his heart just before the explosion of rage that would usually take him over was seething just beneath the surface for days. Anxiety had him been pacing back and forth through the halls with his fingers pinched to his temples, he was desperately trying to focus but nothing seemed to be doing to the trick until he crashed into an unexpecting someone as they rounded the corner and he went falling to the floor in surprise. 

"Sombra?!" He gasped out after he hit the ground and he realized he was looking up at the hacker who was just as surprised, but she had her hand clasped over her face. 

"Watch where you're going-!" She gasped out before she went into a string of what he could only assume were unintelligible Spanish insults, her eyes squeezed together and blood began to trickle between fingers. "Really?! Fuck! Argh, my nose-" 

"I'm so sorry, it was an accident!" He immediately began apologizing and reaching to help her but she shouldered him away and curled into the first open door she could find. 

They hid in the dark of an unused meeting room. Sombra sat on the table with tissues pressed to her face as Sigma ran to get water and anything that would help clean the blood that fell over her chin. Her bloody nose was minor, nothing more than the shock of an initial hit that would heal on its own within hours, but that didn't stop the pain that had her scowling into wet paper towels as she wiped away the blood. He didn't want to make assumptions, but it seemed as if her bad mood started far before their accidental run-in around the corner. 

"Are you alright?" He asked, not about her nose, but about the expression on her face that almost looked like she was going to burst into tears.

She was eerily silent. 

He recognized that pain in his chest, those needles that stiched at his heart telling him he wanted to be the one to make her smile again, that he wanted to fix whatever it was that made her feel that way- he needed to deny those feelings but he just couldn't anymore. The backs of his fingers trailed at the edge of her jaw, carefully guiding her to face him.

"Please, look at me." 

"Fuck off." She spat out before chewing at the corner of her lip and lifting her eyes to his. 

"I'm asking you for honesty. Whatever this is doesn't seem like it's about me accidentally running into you." 

She stared at him for a long time. In her eyes he exactly what he'd felt for years and it ate away at him. She was upset and quickly about to have everything she was holding back bubble over. 

"Siebren?" She whispered as her breath caught in her throat, her eyes unwavering looking into his. "That's your name, isn't it? Siebren?" 

His heart stopped, he was sure of it. Speaking his name broke a barrier that no Talon agent should ever cross. It was a binding closeness, a tie between them that shared more than their titles within a terrorist organization. Speaking their names stripped them down to the person they actually were, not just the code they hit behind and he couldn't return the favor. He couldn't speak at all. 

"You know what I hate most about being here?" She laughed coldly. "No one gives a shit. They could put a bullet in me tonight and no one would bat an eye."

"You're not alone here." He breathed out and quickly felt his world closing in.

That buzzing in his chest was becoming blinding. He was trying to hold it back, trying to suppress it because it was not the time to lose his grip on reality, but the thought of someone causing her to look like this, to feel like _this_ , it was throwing him over the edge and into the deep end of his sanity. His hand was slid over the curve of her neck, fingers curling against the edge of her shaved hair and he knew he must have been sweating as he tried desperately to keep his focus on her.

He needed to keep it together, she needed someone and he wanted to be there to be the person she needed. 

"Who- who made you feel this way?" 

"Whoa, you don't look okay-" She gasped and her hands were suddenly cupping his jaw, nails resting lightly at the side of his neck. 

"We have each other!" He couldn't control the volume of his voice or the racing of his heart.

The buzz of the building was too loud, the room was getting darker by the second, he could feel the call to the stars that threatened to pull him away.

He was trying to fight it, but he couldn't. 

"No, no, no no, no, it's back, that song, that damn melody- I'm sorry, Sombra I'm so sorry you need to get away from me-" 

All that noise crashed into dead silence as she fell forward and her lips met his.

He convinced himself that his body went into shock, that the sudden flip to a complete numb was caused by his own imagination but he was staring down at Sombra, her brows furrowed down in concern and a long kiss still pressed to his lips. There was the slightest taste of blood that lingered but he didn't care because he was so overwhelmed. Ever so slightly, he leaned into her, a kiss that deepened with her fingers sliding into her hair and her eyes fluttered open then snapped up to his, which in hindsight must have been startling considering he was staring wide-eyed right back at her. 

"I don't know why I did that." She blurted frantically as she jerked away and covered her mouth with her hand. 

"Sombra-" He touched her wrist, wishing she would drop her hand so he could continue to kiss her until that shocked look on her face disappeared. 

All it took was another moment of eyes meeting, another breath that brought them together and their lips crashed together again.

Years of messing with each other, of avoiding glances and blushed cheeks it led to him wrapping his arm at her back and kissing her as if he needed her to breathe. She grabbed at the back of his hair and pulled him down over her, against that meeting room table where he fell heavy on top of her but neither of them cared because they were finally allowing themselves to feel everything they'd suppressed for years. His hand moved to her leg, grabbing her at her knee to hook it at his back before he slid his palm over the slick fabric of her leggings then up over his sides. 

"Olivia." She panted beneath hard kisses, her lips turned to his ear. "My name's Olivia." 

"Olivia." He growled in response, his kisses taking a heated turn and trailing over her jaw, down the side of her throat and down to her shoulder as he unzipped her jacket. "My darling Olivia. What a beautiful name."

They would have kept going, blindly ignoring the unlocked meeting room door and how quickly they would have been caught if it weren't for someone calling for Sombra far away down the hall.

They snapped away from each other, all at once coming to their senses and for a few moments too long he stayed looming over her breathing hard as he realized he was all too ready to take her there and then. That voice called her again, this time far closer and they scrambled to separate. She grabbed a handful of tissues, using them to hide the pink burning at her face as she zipped her jacket back in place and jumped from the meeting table, without so much as a glance over her shoulder she stepped through the meeting room door back into the bright hall.

"Hey, sorry I'm over here! Just had a small bloody nose-" Her usual noncaring attitude was back in full swing as the door slammed behind her and Sigma was left all to himself clutching at his chest sliding down against the closed door. 

There were times where he would question what was real and what was not, but he knew without a doubt that the feeling of her lips against his was one of the most real things he'd felt since stepping foot in Talon.

How in the world was he supposed to look her in the eyes after that? He didn't regret it, not in the least bit, but he felt as if he was standing on a shaking platform ready to break through at any moment. 

After they had their kiss in the meeting room, Sigma was whisked away for a mission unexpectedly and didn't return until almost a week later. Every waking moment he was reminded of it, he could still taste her, he could still feel the stumble of her half-shaved head on his fingertips, he could smell the new body wash she'd bought that reminded him of the flower fields he used to walk by on his way to school when he was young. 

Not being able to talk to her, or to even acknowledge what happened was almost a form of torture. He needed to know it wasn't just a mistake, that she didn't regret it because he knew deep in his heart he found something in that kiss that he'd been looking for after far too long. He was dwelling on it, he knew he shouldn't have been because it was just a kiss, it could have meant nothing but more than a distraction, but he couldn't get her off his mind. 

After a mission away, he thought he would have a moment to breathe. No mission, no course for a PhD or experiment could ever prepare Sigma for the scare of unexpectedly finding the woman he'd kissed in a moment of passion standing in his apartment. Sombra- Olivia- caught in the dead center of his living room right after opening his door, froze at the sight of him. Bag still over his shoulder and short on sleep, her unexpected appearance startled her almost as much as it startled him. 

“Good god, what on earth are you doing in my room?!” He gasped out as he brought a clawed hand over his heart and felt his pulse racing in his throat. “You should know better than to scare me! I could have lost all my senses-"

“Shh!" She hurriedly brought a finger to her lips. "Keep it down, I'm hiding from Moira because I may or may not have broken an entire self of her biotic samples. She's looking for me!”

"That gives you no right to break in here while I'm away-"

"Please, please don't make me face her right now. If you let me stay I'll get you those cookie things you put over your coffee." She clasped her hands together feigning her best innocent look. 

"Stroopwafel? Hmm... I do enjoy those." He wasn't sure he thought he was denying, Sombra had startled him by being somewhere he didn't expect to find her, but he was more than happy to be in her company after she'd been the only thing on his mind for well over a week. Although, he brought a fist to his chin as if he was deeply brooding and debating over whether or not he would allow her to stay. It was easier to make her believe he simply wanted a sweet treat then it was for him to admit he'd just like to have her around. "I suppose that would be alright." 

They looked at each other as he dropped his bags at the door and he twisted the lock behind him. It was a game of who would be the first to bring it up, who would want to talk about the kiss they shared that felt like so much more.

She watched him intently as he moved to take off his armor. His armor was weighing down on him, making it hard for him to breathe the longer her eyes lingered on him. Clip by clip, latch by latch, he slowly began to pull away his armor and pile it at the side of the couch where Sombra sat on the armrest and pretended like she wasn't watching him. 

"How have you been? Alright, I hope." He spoke, unsure what to say to her.

"Me? Yeah, I'm fine."

"Good." 

"Good." He repeated as the final piece of his chest plate loosened and he was left with his top covered in only under armor tights. 

"And you? Things are good?" She was unzipping her own jacket, revealing her usual leggings and crop that always made him blush even though he must have seen her that way hundreds of times. 

"Good, good. Yes, things are good." 

"Great." 

"Should we talk about-"

"How'd the mission go?" She interrupted, clearly not interesting in discussing it as she turned away and tapped her nails against her lip. He stepped toward her, closing a gap small enough that he could wrap his arms around her at the first hint of wanting to continue what they'd started. 

"I know you don't really care to talk about that." He sighed as he stared at her. Usually so conscious of how big and intimidating he was, he allowed himself to loom over her, he didn't want to hide anything about his intentions. 

They were still testing each other, waiting each other out. She did not stand down even beneath his shadow or even when her eyes flickered from his gaze to his lips. Sigma could almost swear he heard the final chip in the wall that separated them, with even that simple look light burst through and nothing was keeping them apart anymore.

Every giggle when she laughed at his jokes, every roll of his eyes as he blushed at her games, it was all worth it as her hand grabbed his and roughly pulled it back just where it had been before. Gentle fingertips grabbed the edge of the zipper on her cropped top. 

"Olivia..." He whispered as he pulled that zipper open. 

She sighed so sweetly, even a hint of a whine right at the end as it fell from her shoulders to the floor and she stood exposed in front of him. His big hand slid over her stomach, up over her chest and up to her shoulders as she arched forward and ran her hands beneath the shirt of his under armor. She was in a hurry, not even bothering to try and make up excuses for why she was blushing so hard, she pushed his shirt as far up over his chest as she could reach before he had to take over and bring it off his body to throw across his floor. Her hand, long nails and all ran down over his muscles, through his chest hair trailing until she hooked at the waist of his pants and he leaned forward surprising her with a deep kiss. 

There was something deliriously passionate about two people finding themselves in each other. Denial about what was happening, even in the moment, even as their lips met and arms held each other tightly and they fell to the floor together. She grabbed him at his sides as he hunched over her body, kissing until she could bearly breathe, his lips whispering to her until he was trailing over her cheek and down to her neck where he couldn't help but leave little marks as he went. 

All the while, her legs were at his waist, her hips lifted from the floor grinding against him. He loved seeing her blush the more she felt him growing hard against her body, her mouth hung open with gasps when he would rock against her tease just enough to make her whine. He returned to kissing her lips and he grabbed at her legs taking her ankles out of the lock at his back. Laying her to the floor, he distracted her with smiles between kisses and he slid his hand beneath the front of her leggings, fingers heading straight to her core. She squirmed beneath him, nervous at the new feeling, only to find her legs shaking and falling open as he trailed along the front of her panties. 

"Have you been thinking about me, Olivia?" He moved to speak against her neck, his voice low in her ear. He chuckled and she sucked in a sharp breath as she turned to look at him with heavy lidded eyes. "So wet already, my my." 

"Ah- don't- don't use that tone with me." Her threat was empty, it was more of a beg for him to do it again as he felt her tremble. "You and your voice-"

"What were you really doing all alone in here, hmm?" He asked against her ear, one of his fingers slipping beneath the edge of her panties and teasing against her entrance.

He was completely enchanted by her, by every reaction of her body as he pushed in and felt her warmth for the first time. She laid there gripping at his shoulders, eyes meeting between her needy gasps and nails dragging through the back of his hair. Feeling her writhing and grinding back against him, hearing her breath jump with every ride against her nerves, she was just so perfect. He was torn between wanting to be sweet with her, wanting to hold her gently and drive his fingers until she was shaking and pleading for him, but he needed her far more than his patience could manage.

He pressed forward to kiss her hard before he lifted away. She seemed surprised when he roughly pulled away and ripped her leggings off her legs. 

"Aw, tired already old man?" She teased, her chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. She pushed herself to rest on her elbows, watching him as he tossed her bottoms away. She smirked, that dangerous look on her face that always meant trouble, and she launched forward toppling him over to the floor. "Need to take a break and let me do the work?" 

"That's not funny, I'm not even that old." He pouted just be realizing she was pulling him free from his own pants. "I also have far more endurance than you, I've seen how winded you get turning training exercises." 

"Shh." She waved a finger in front of her denying his point and she slowly gripped around him with long torturous strokes that make his eyes roll. 

He never knew her as a patient woman, yet it still somehow surprised him when she climbed over his body and let her knees fall to either side of his hips. She seemed determined to do what she wanted to do, and he was all too willing to let her as she bounced back and tried to blindly line herself with his tip. He allowed himself to indulge in every repressed moment of holding back his thoughts about how she would feel in his hands. While she worked herself against him, stretching herself open as she rocked her hips down on him, he ran his hands over her body and grabbed her with loving squeezes that made her smile. 

Fleeting fantasies and thoughts pushed aside were far exceeded as she fell against him finding the deepest point he could be buried within her. For a blinding moment she sat on him, gripping and shaking as he held her at her hips. 

"Are you alright?" He asked beneath her when she stayed there just a few beats too long. 

"You- uh-" She shut her eyes and wiped at sweat on her forehead. "You're very, um, _proportionate_." 

"I'll take that as a compliment." He smiled and held her in place as he moved beneath her, pushing until his upper half was sitting up. Moving stirred something within her, he could feel her walls twitch and her legs shake around him. He kissed her softly and bucked up testing to see how much she would be able to take. 

It was a passionate lock, her hips moved in small motions as he did most of the work snapping to meet her. It was a mess of arms and legs, of bodies sweating with their first true meeting of each other and they stayed there riding against one another until he could feel her holding herself back. 

She whispered his name as he nuzzled in the crook of her neck, his lips lazily dragging along her collarbone while he continued his pace in her hoping to throw her over the edge. When she could no longer take it, when her exhausted legs and her cramping hips were giving out to warm chills and her toes curling, she held her tightly riding through until he could feel her finish completely.

"I'm almost there." He gasped knowing she was going happily limp in his arms. 

"What do you need me to do?" She asked beneath her breath, her hands moving to hold him at his face. He was throbbing against her walls, already on the verge. 

"Kiss me. Just kiss me." He asked and within seconds her lips were against his. It occurred to him he didn't know what her limit was, what she was comfortable with, and in a frantic moment just before he about to spill over, he gasped and spoke against her lips. "Where should I- Olivia, where do you want me to-"

"It's okay!" She accidentally yelled out, seemingly understanding just what he was asking as he moved to pull out from beneath her. With him still sitting up she clung to him hard and pressed her face to his chest, her breathing rapid and warm against his skin. 

As he came she kissed his chest and squeezed her arms around his body. She was shaking, but she was smiling and it wasn't long before he was becoming acutely aware of the mess between them trickling over his legs. They stayed paused together for a moment before her arms released their hold and her hands trailed from his back to his sides then to his chest where she pushed herself to look at him. Their expressions were disbelief and heat, pink cheeks and open mouths before he swallowed hard and fell exhausted with his back to the floor. He ran his hands over his face, into his hair and over his cheeks as she sat on top of him, watching and hiding her face with the back of her hand. 

Neither of them quite knew what to say, or what to do first. 

He was the one who finally could no longer stand the silence, and with his hands pressed to either side of his head and eyes staring up at the ceiling he pushed out a long breath.

"Would you... like some tea?" 

"I should probably go apologize to Moira." She blurted before finally pulling herself from him carefully. "I'm sure you need some sleep after being on a mission for so long." 

"You don't have to go." He said as he found his legs and followed her as she searched the room for her clothes. 

"I'll see you tomorrow." She squeaked out and held a ball of her clothes against her chest as she hurried to his bathroom door. "There's a council meeting, they want you there too." 

"O-Okay." He nodded, back again to not knowing where he stood with her. "Yeah, okay." 

* * *

The next morning they sat next to each other at a large dramatic table, listening to Reaper ripping into someone for a mistake they made that cost Talon to lose a secured base. An outsider would have no idea why Sigma looked so nervous, why his shoulders jump every time Sombra's leg brushed against his beneath the table. He was fidgeting with his hands out of sight, unable to keep still until Sombra grabbed his fingers and coyly turned to speak with him as if they were talking about nothing more than business as usual.

"Why are you antsy right now?" She questioned as if she hadn't been bouncing on top of him the night before. "Do we need to leave? Are you feeling like you might lose control?"

"No, it's silly." He gently pulled his hands away from her, that pressure in his chest wasn't his usual gravitational weight, it was fear thinking she would never again return for their late night talks, that the wall they broke would slowly build up again and he'd be left alone just as he was before. "I mean, should we talk about it? About what happened with us?" 

"Keep your voice down!" She whispered and they both looked to Reaper who was gripping at his shotguns and the poor agent beneath him screaming as he was curled in a ball on the floor. "Listen, I don't know what that was. I know I liked it and I know things are weird right now, but we can't do anything like that again, right?" 

"Right." He nodded and glanced down. She caught him lingering on her lips and she nudged him with her elbow. "We'll just... go back to way things were before." 

"Yeah, nothing's changed." She leaned her elbows on the table in front of her and watched Reaper's brutal scene unfolding, completely unbothered. 

He smiled to himself. The feeling that settled in his stomach was a strange one. Acceptance, and in an even more bizarre way, thankfulness. If this was how it had to be, he was genuinely happy to have it. He knew in the long run their lives didn't fit together, but if he would find comfort in her, if he could be the person she sought out when she was lonely, that was good enough. 

Normal. Talon and normal, two words that didn't go together and certainly didn't describe how they acted around each other following that meeting. 

She would mess with him, doing anything she could to get a rise or make him blush, her usual methods but the outcome of her shenanigans were now far different.

Of course, Sombra enjoyed seeing him flustered and containing it, but it was even more satisfying watching SIgma having to excuse himself during meetings because she sent him messages that would make him accidentally drop his phone, or using her invisibility cybernetics for unintended purposes like getting beneath his workstation and running her hands up his thighs while he was showing someone his latest experiment, she would stop at no lengths to tease him relentlessly because now she knew she could get away with it.

They way they dealt with the awkwardness between them was by not dealing with it at all. Instead, it was innuendos and longing stares day after day until it would explode once more and they'd find themselves caught up in another whirlwind. 

Be that in his lab, hidden behind tables so no one would catch them if anyone peeked in to ask for Sigma, or her trying to distract him by grinding against his thigh as he tried to stay quiet during a phone meeting. Training rooms where his helmet would become unbearably hot as she pushed aside his armor and held him down by his hips, or using the coed sauna in Talon locker rooms late at night and he would have to hold a hand over her mouth so no one in the next rooms could hear them.

They just couldn't keep their hands off each other, not that either of them wanted to but it was never simply about the sex. It was the moments after, where they would be breathing hard and they would meet each other's eyes. It was the way she would open up and share things with him no one else would ever know. It was a friendship, a bonding, it was something that made his heart race if he tried to put a label on it. 

His favorite times were when they just spent evenings together. Meals that they made and pretended like it wasn't some sort of pseudo date, movie nights on her couch where she would fall asleep against his chest, little everyday things that outside of Talon walls they may have taken for granted. 

“How do we keep finding ourselves like this?” Siebren sighed as his arms hugged loosely around her one night as they sat together on the couch. She was comfortable between his legs, each of them facing the tv with some movie playing neither of them were watching. 

“We shouldn't question it." She sighed, her voice breathy, almost sad. 

His hand trailed along the inside of her thigh, he could hear the catch in her breath and feel her body responding to him the closer be moved to her center. She slipped her hand over his, fingers intertwining and gripping with him as he moved between her thighs. She took control, leading him, bringing his hesitant fingers just where it made her sigh and push her shoulders against him. He paused, his hand lifted away unsure if she would want him to touch him such a way- in his own mind he was so much older than her, his time for seduction and love had passed long after a whirling love affair with he fell for beneath the stars on an Overwatch moon base.

Every fiber of his being told him he was in the wrong for wanting to be with her in the way he was touching her, but that often just drove him to her faster.

"Siebren?" She pleaded softly, her fingers squeezing his in a gentle question. 

"I like you very much, Olivia." He spoke against her neck, one arm hugged her close to him while his hand hovered just above her core. "I don't want to ruin what we have." 

"Come on, don't be like that." She pleaded.

"Is it alright if I continue?" He asked as his pinky slid along the inside of her thigh. 

"You're too nice." Olivia smiled nervously, she turned and pressed her cheek to Siebren's chest. Her cheeks were warm against his shirt where she pressed a lazy kiss from the side of her mouth. "So formal about it. You don't have to ask like that." 

"I think you like it." He nuzzled his face against her neck, eyelashes fluttering against her jaw as his lips barely brushed along her throat.

The back of her head dropped against his chest as he teased fingertips along the edge of her panties. She sighed his name, a quiet beg wanting him to take it further, but his teasing was relentless. His hand slid back over her thigh, moving towards her knees then slowly back up to her center with smiling kisses against her neck. She was squirming between his legs, writhing because she wanted more and was enjoying him far too much. She grabbed his hand, holding it tightly as she brought it to her center and pressed his fingers against covered folds. 

_"Touch me."_ She demanded through gritted teeth, her face blushing hard. 

"Oh, my darling, you ask nicer than that." He warned, keeping his fingers as far off her as he could.

"I'm not going to beg you." She arched her back and gripped hard at his hand.

"Or you're not? Well then-" He ripped his hand away, moving to keep it far from her reach. "That's too bad." 

"Wait-" She attempted to look above her, to meet his eyes only for him to avoid her gaze by kissing the top of her head. "Wait, you're not serious?" 

"Oh, I'm serious." He smiled against her hair before finally giving in letting her have what she wanted. 

That was the game he loved with her. There kissing at her cheeks after days of her going to great lengths to mess with him, the relief that they still had someone behind Talon walls no matter how dire the circumstances. It seemed so silly that whatever it was between them blossomed from the same roots, that they were in such a crazy world together. Side by side, day by day, they pretend as if they've never even looked in each other's direction before. They listen to orders, they bide their time, they meet in secret. A scientist and a hacker standing strong in the shadows of an organization waiting for their world to change. 


End file.
